Gaining Experience Hour-by-Hour</i>
Room 15, this is it, I thought to myself. “Here goes nothing, just be yourself,” I caught myself saying. With sweaty palms, swarms of butterflies filling my stomach, and worried thoughts, I slowly touched the metal handle and creaked the door open wide enough for only my body to enter. This was my first day of service learning, and I was nervous. As I entered the brightly decorated classroom, a bubbly, spunky lady glanced at me and said, “You must be Heidi.” “Yes,” was my stammered reply. Immediately 30 pairs of eyes stared at me, watching my every move.
“Class this is Miss Heidi, and she will be sharing our learning experience for the next couple of days.” A smile slowly found its way to my face as the teacher spoke these words. Suddenly, my uneasy, nervous feelings had vanished. I became extremely comfortable in this setting and became anxious to complete my 30 hours of service learning. At this point, I felt confident that my decision of becoming an educator was the right decision for me in my life.
My first assignment instilled in me the desire to serve the youth. I headed to the library to assist two, fourth grade boys in reading a baseball story, because these boys would need extra help in the reading process, anything I could do to help them read more fluently was my goal. This is going to be so easy, I thought to myself. “Ba-Ba-B-a-se-ball is the G-G-Gra-t-test spurt, I mean sport, alive,” the little boy said. After what seemed like forever, I soon realized that this task was not going to be as easy as it appeared to be. My heart ached for these boys, but I know an aching heart will not help them succeed. I decided to make reading this book more interesting by having the boys act out what they were reading. This wonderful idea led to an hour of pure enjoyment for all three of us. By the end of our time together, I understood the true meaning of service and how my service can affect those around me.
In addition to serving those I will teach, I also learned that as a future teacher laughing at my mistakes is essential. Let me illustrate by the following story. I was asked to give a spelling test, and while holding the teacher’s manual, I slowly headed towards the front of the classroom. After I gave the second word, all the students started laughing. A little girl suddenly raised her hand and informed me that the test was easy, because the back of the manual revealed all the answers to the test. More giggles immediately followed. The teacher noticing my embarrassment, whispered in my ear, “It’s OK, it happens to teachers all the time.” This valuable lesson was very important for me to learn during my service learning experience. 
Teachers need to create lesson plans so that the students can learn, but they must also be creative to help them become actively engaged in the learning process. During one of our breaks, the teacher asked me if I would be able to do an art project with the students. This experience allowed me to demonstrate my creativity in the classroom. We mixed water, food coloring and dish soap in plastic cups, and then I had the student’s take a straw and blow bubbles in the cup. After the bubbles reached two inches above the cup, the students placed a piece of paper over the top of the cup, creating a design on the paper because of the food coloring in the bubbles. The students enjoyed the process of blowing the bubbles in the cup. One little boy even commented that it was like blowing bubbles in his chocolate milk, an activity that he is not allowed to do at home. I will never forget this experience because it allowed me to exercise my creativity during a teaching setting.
While working with the students was an amazing experience, I also enjoyed talking to my mentor teacher about teaching in general. We discussed all kinds of issues, issues that face the school system today. In my introduction to education course, I had the opportunity to present a report regarding the AIMS test. Fortunately, I was able to talk with my mentor teacher regarding this subject. Although she could not reveal all of her feelings regarding the AIMS test, she did discuss with me the test as a tool to hold teachers accountable for teaching. We also conversed about how changes definitely do need to be made so that this test can be an accurate tool to measure success of the teacher and the students. I found it interesting to talk with my mentor teacher regarding issues on education.
The last lesson that I learned was that a teacher cannot get emotionally attached to their students. The last day at my service-learning site I became dismal, knowing that I would not return to this class. To make matters worse, a little girl came up to me, giving me a big hug, “Do you have to leave?” She asked. This did make me feel like I wanted to stay longer. I asked the teacher if she was affected like that at the end of the school year when the children move up to the next grade. She did say that she misses them, but most of the time, they come to visit her and exchange a quick hello. 
As time went on, I became more at ease in my service learning experiences, and I am very grateful to have been able to share this experience in a fourth grade classroom. This experience was a wonderful learning opportunity that helped me prepare for the day when I will have my own classroom. The lessons that I learned will stay with me as I finish preparing to be a full time teacher, lessons such as humor, preparation, and showing concern for those I will teach. I look forward to more service learning experiences so that I can learn more valuable lessons for my future as a teacher. Graphics found at:
http://web.mit.edu/afs/athena.mit.edu/user/f/d/fdalan/www/pic/gallery/mit/logos/mit-baseball.jpg
http://www.ssta.sk.ca/graphics/laughing.jpg
http://members.tripod.com/adm/interstitial/remote.gif
http://www.images.bham.ac.uk/im2053.jpg
http://www.gospelcom.net/ia/programs/khope/images/hug2.jpg
http://www.glenburn.k12.nd.us/images/sch4olslide.jpg
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